News aggregator Dailyhunt in talks to raise USD 150 Mn

May 15, 2019 by The Passage Team

News aggregator Dailyhunt is in talks with Japan’s SoftBank to raise USD 150 million, Mint reported cinting two sources privy with the development.

“SoftBank’s interest in Indian content startups emerges from the larger theme of tapping into the next internet user wave in the country. SoftBank has held talks with another regional content startup for a potential investment, but nothing has been finalised yet," one of the sources told Mint.

The investment is likely to be a part of the company's ongoing round of which USD 35 million has already been raised from Goldman Sachs in March, according to Dailyhunt parent Verse’s filings with the ministry of corporate affairs. Last September, Dailyhunt raised USD 6.39 million in extended Series E round from New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge.

Dailyhunt is one of the world's top mobile applications for news with 22 million users and 30 billion page views per month. The mobile application aggregates news in 17 languages.

Tencent-backed NewsDog is Dailyhunt’s biggest competitor in India.
Earlier, Dailyhunt’s president Umang Bedi had said the platform has a revenue run rate of USD 40 million. He also claimed it had around 145 million monthly active users as of January, which is expected to go up to 205 million by June.

“These numbers are proof and go a long way in proving Dailyhunt’s reach across geographies and provide an insight into the consumer mindset that is skewed towards quality content,” Bedi had said.

The Indian media and entertainment industry would nearly double in size to USD 123 billion by 2022, according to Confederation of Indian Industry and Boston Consulting Group.

Formerly called Newshunt, Dailyhunt was created by ex-Nokia employees Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni in 2009. Virendra Gupta, the founder and CEO of Verse Innovation, acquired Dailyhunt in 2012.

The Passage Team

The Passage is committed to creating in-depth content over technology industry across Asia with a focus on emerging startups in the technology, healthcare, education, food, tech, travel & mobility segments.